


Uncovered

by shiphitsthefan



Series: Ash & Antlers [5]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alpha Hannibal, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Asexual Hannibal, Asexual Will, Bathing/Washing, Fairy Tale Elements, Hannibal Loves Will, Hurt/Comfort, Intersex Will, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Will, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Season/Series 03, Will Loves Hannibal, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-19 18:02:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9453431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan/pseuds/shiphitsthefan
Summary: Followingthe events of the night before, Will struggles to reconcile his desire for sex with his asexuality. He and Hannibal are also concerned by the sexual roles they instinctually assumed, wondering what the terms "alpha" and "omega" even mean with regards to themselves. After a fight fueled by overwhelming feelings, Will wanders into the forest and wades into the stream. In his search for answers, he begins to unravel not only the culture and biology of the wendigo, but his own unique identity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first real fairy tale I've ever written! It was entirely too much fun, and now I want to write more! :D
> 
> Thanks to my cannipals over at [Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/) for running the sci-fi/fantasy fest, [#HannibalOdyssey](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/post/154688733799/we-love-the-show-canon-we-love-our-rarepairs-the). Further thanks to the filthy sinners over in the A/B/O Knitting Circle for encouraging non-traditional dynamics. Furthest thanks to [Llewcie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/pseuds/Llewcie/works) for her support and beta prowess. <3
> 
> This story is finished and will update daily. I hope you enjoy it!

_"To all the girls who no longer believe in fairy tales or happy endings: You are the writer of this story. Chin up and straighten your crown, you're the queen of this kingdom and only you know how to rule it."_

_\--B. Divine_

 

In retrospect, Will probably could have handled the whole “two asexuals waking up after unplanned partially-shifted wendigo sex” business in a less abrasive way. Blinking awake to rug burn and a sore ass left him less than charitable, unfortunately.

“That was...intense,” he said, tamping down the urge to roll away from Hannibal and take a long, scalding-hot shower.

Hannibal groaned, and it was a strange, monstrous sound Will had never heard him make--almost like a roar from an over-sated beast. “Indeed,” he agreed, voice rough, “it was.”

“And the sex was…” Will stopped, searching for the correct words. “The whole experience is what was intense, but the sex was...strange.”

“I dislike the use of that word with regards to what occurred between us.”

“Well how would you describe it, then?” asked Will, practically sneering. “Neither one of us are interested in having penetrative sex; you turned into half a wendigo; you got your cock in my ass--”

“Will.”

But he didn’t stop. “--Without any kind of prep. I mean, except for your tongue, I guess, and that was _also_ weird, because you kept telling me I tasted good.” He paused, considering. “Okay, maybe that last part isn’t so weird coming from you.”

Will glanced over at Hannibal, but they both apparently felt more comfortable addressing the skylight. “You were...slick.”

“We didn’t use any lube.”

Hannibal cleared his throat. “Of that, I am aware. It wouldn’t have been necessary had we done so. You were already lubricated.”

Will scrunched up his eyes; self-lubricating is something that only happens in boat motors, as far as he’s concerned. “There still should’ve been--ugh, I can’t believe I’m saying this-- _fingering_ involved. _Stretching.”_

“You were already loose.”

“I’m going to puke.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his closed eyes until he saw a line of spots. “And I called you ‘Alpha’ and I wanted you to leave your dick in me forever and that’s all I could think about and this is _terrible.”_

“I’ve never had anyone complain before,” grumbled Hannibal.

“Don’t get alpha male on me.” Will looked back over at Hannibal; he seemed amused, which was infuriating. “This isn’t about your prowess, Hannibal. The sex was...I mean it was _fantastic,_ don’t get me wrong.” Hannibal, still apparently channeling his baser, animal instincts, positively purred. Will thought it would have been adorable, perhaps, under any other circumstance. “I just think we should learn more about all the--the _strangeness_ before...coupling again.”

Hannibal nodded. “That seems fair, as you are the receiving party.”

“Wait. What makes you think that you’ll always get to pitch?”

“Instinct,” Hannibal said. “I feel, on a primitive level, that your duty as the...I believe you are to…” He frowned, seemingly perplexed, then licked his lips before continuing. _“Bottom,_ as it were.”

“Oh my God.” Will pushed himself up to sit on the rug; his ass smarted, and he winced at the memory. It had been impossibly good last night, but now, in the light of day, Will just wished it hadn’t happened. Everything was confusing, and he couldn’t think through it in Hannibal’s company. “This conversation needs to stop,” he said. “I can’t talk about this right now.”

“Will,” and Hannibal’s voice was impossibly gentle, dripping down Will’s nerves like honey. He placed his hand on the back of Will’s neck, and Will wanted to melt and...relax and...

“Don’t touch me,” said Will through his teeth. He shrugged off Hannibal’s hand, turning to see the profound hurt in his eyes, but Will simply wasn’t capable of caring at that moment. “Until we figure this out and can control it, can _behave_ ourselves? Don’t touch me.”

Hannibal’s face went blank. It made Will’s stomach turn, watching Hannibal don his mask, pained him further when he said nothing, rose to his feet, and walked away. Will was seized with the overwhelming urge to keen and whine, to call him back; his eyes burned under salinous weight. He had only wanted room to think, to unmuddle his thoughts, to figure out how to breathe through the pounding in his chest. Instead, Will curled into a ball there in front of the fireplace like a homeless pillbug, and watched the ashes settle.

 

* * *

 

Will wakes up long after the fire’s gone completely cold, a dog on either side of his torso, the latter of which isn’t so unusual. Skipping breakfast had been inevitable, given the mood in which he and Hannibal parted, but Will hadn’t intended on missing lunch, too. It’s telling of the depth of Hannibal’s ire that he didn’t come to call Will to the kitchen, if not to feed him then to at least make sure that he ate.

The dogs follow him out of the dark of the living room and into the uncharacteristically cold kitchen. Hannibal’s knives are untouched--Will still isn’t sure how he knows, only that he _does_. Even if he didn’t have an innate knowledge of the state of the cookware, the towels haven’t been changed. It isn’t as if Hannibal needs to eat daily, now that he has Will to Feed from as he pleases. Nevertheless, it unnerves Will.

He looks in the study next, but the harpsichord sits idle. The library, too, sits empty. Will goes through the house room by room, each more quickly than the last, until he finally climbs the long stairway to the nest. But there’s no Hannibal there, either; Will begins to worry about not having made up the bed and not tidying the pillows and folding the blankets, as if that’s why Hannibal can’t be found.

Before he realizes what’s happening, Will’s curled himself up right in the middle of their enormous bed, whimpering. This is wrong. _Everything_ is wrong, and Will doesn’t know why, or what’s happening, or why he feels so...so _empty._

Last time, when he watched Ripper bound off into the forest, Will didn’t react like this. He didn’t fall apart from distress. Will was relieved when Hannibal came back, yes, but he never considered that he might _not._ Taking several deep, steadying breaths, Will busies himself with putting the nest back in order, and chooses not to consider why it makes him feel more settled.

Ceph whines from outside the door, and then Francas growls. Will wonders if Hannibal thought to let the children out before he left, and every part of that sentence hurts for different reasons. They all walk down from the nest, dogs bounding down the steps ahead of him. He pauses now and then to look past the tiny ever-lit candles in their mirrored cubbies, and doesn’t entirely recognize the person staring back. Will seems haunted, pale and sickly and sweat-drenched.

The air above ground is a cool balm on his skin. Will wiggles his toes in the wet leaves and dirt as Ceph chases Francas through the trees. Wrapping his arms around himself, Will realizes he has yet to redress from the failed Feeding the night before. It hardly matters, though; no one else comes through these woods except his Alpha.

Hannibal.

Will can smell him on his skin and in the air. It’s maddening, to be abandoned by someone, yet still retain their scent. Hannibal’s smell is unidentifiable--it only reminds Will of _home,_ not of anything else in particular--but it’s trapped in his sinuses, like methyl salicylate, though gutted fish might be a more accurate metaphor. He could retreat inside and shower, he supposes; Hannibal hadn’t done the best post-coital clean up, and Will can feel faint traces of saliva and semen dried to the insides of his thighs. It’s still tacky, like it never completely dried.

The stream will be cool, and there won’t be a towel or even soap, but a bath out in the woods  sounds just about perfect to Will right now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy that everyone's enjoying this so much! :D

The stream is much colder than Will expected it to be, and the setting sun barely breaks through the cloud cover and the forest’s autumn-touched canopy. Will is chilled down to his bones, teeth chattering, but it isn’t enough to drive him from the water. Each of his arms is hooked around a rock, anchoring Will as he floats in the gentle flow of the stream. He isn’t sure why he feels the need to secure his position--the water isn’t fast enough to move him, and he wouldn’t risk breaking his arms if it was.

Francas and Ceph lounge on the bank in the mud, though they aren’t rolling around in it, thankfully. Will has picked crunched leaves out of dirt-caked fur before, and has no interest in doing so again. Not tonight, at least.

Will’s used to them playing in the stream, especially when he’s in it, but the dogs are only staring at him now. It’s unnerving--well, should be. None of his well-honed police instincts are kicking in, and he doesn’t feel unsafe. All Will feels is an urge to follow the water. That should be enough, all things considered.

He moves his legs up and down in the stream. If he points his toes, Will can touch the bottom, all pebbles and sand. Every now and again, a trout slithers past; the tiniest fish keep finding the insides of his thighs, occasionally an ass cheek or the top of his crack, and that should bother him, too. All he feels is a sense of calm, of belonging, of being part of the natural order.

The food chain. He Feeds Hannibal; why not the stream, too?

Will smiles up at the leaves in the trees. Red and yellow and gold and orange, a tissue paper kaleidoscope over the sky. He blinks until it stays behind his eyelids. Autumn is so much nicer than spring and summer, and Will is glad that the season finally changed.

Although, now that he thinks about it, weren’t the trees green just yesterday?

He opens his eyes again, and the sun is gone, and the world is dark, and the moon is the barest sliver in the sky. The stream looks black in the moonlight, its song louder and even more enticing. A glance to the riverbank, and Francas and Ceph are staring off in the direction of the flowing water, down and down and down into the woods where Will has never walked.

After a few deep breaths, decay clinging to the air, Will lifts his arms, and lets the stream carry him down into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

The water moves slowly enough to make Will consider that he might not be moving, at all. Maybe the forest on either side of him is merely one long painting, a scrolling backdrop, mimicking a change in scenery. Will remembers operating a moving panorama in high school for a theater class he never meant to sign up for.

This whole experience feels unreal enough to  _ be _ a play, so he supposes the metaphor holds. The only characters Will can remember floating along in the water are Ophelia and the Lady of Shalott, though, and they aren’t exactly great examples for comparison.

He idly wonders where the stream ends, if he’ll be spat out into a lake, or perhaps into the sea. Will the water be fresh or brackish? Turquoise or turtle-green? Or maybe the stream doesn’t end, at all, and Will is doomed to follow it forever.

None of it worries him, and Will is certain that it should--that later, it would. Now, however,  _ right _ now, Will is soothed by the increasingly cold water on his increasingly warm skin. He easily sees himself as an empty vessel, waiting to be moored

Will’s eyes close, and he capsizes.

When he opens them, the world capsizes, too, flips over like a page in a book, and he’s lying on dry land, gazing up into a rippling black sky full of stars.

There are still the trees, familiar yet not; instead of three-dimensions, they exist like paper cutouts, as a shadow of themselves. It must be autumn here, too, Will thinks, watching as the leaves fall up, landing in concentric rippling circles of sky. Will sits up in the dry riverbed, now laid with smooth tracks for a train he hopes isn’t operating.

He’s draped in white, but Will can’t especially feel it. All he feels is  _ hot. _

“I like summer best.”

Will turns to his left, and there’s...well, he can’t exactly call it a girl, but the child’s skeleton is wearing a tattered dress, all rotting ruffles and dusty lace. There are bows suspended in the air, still tied to long-gone hair. “Why summer?"

Her jaw sags farther down, Will supposes to indicate a smile. It’s not as though she could stop grinning even if she wanted to. “The leaves stay on the trees,” she explains, sitting down on the embankment. “I don’t like when they fall.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s winter next.” She taps the toes of her inexplicably shiny black shoes together. “Winter is bad.”

Will wipes sweat from his brow with a piece of his drape; it turns to smoke in his fingertips, but doesn’t rise. “Do you not like to play in the snow?” He plays with the plume of smoke, feathers it out over his arm. “Go skating and sledding and have snowball fights?"

The girl’s jaw turns upside down, so Will doesn’t press further.

“What’s your name?” he asks, stepping over the iron rails

Her jaw slowly rights itself. “Mischa."

Will smiles gently. “You’re Hannibal’s sister,” and she nods slowly. “Is this where you live?"

“When he leaves, I do."

“When who leaves?"

Mischa kicks her little legs, one bony shin at a time. “Hannibal, of course!” She giggles. “You’re very silly.”

He frowns and furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t know ‘silly’?”

“Never mind,” says Will with a sigh. “Do you know how to get out of here? The forest. I…” He looks up at the dark water, at the moon and stars shining down and through it. “I was in the stream and then...and then I wasn’t.”

Mischa hops down into the riverbed; her dress puffs out like a parachute. “You came from the water?”

Will looks down at her and drops the smoke, letting it curl back around his arm, instead. “I suppose I did.”

“Are you a sea witch?” she asks excitedly. “I’ve heard stories about those.”

“I wasn’t one last time I checked.”

“Did you check this morning?”

He blinks and says, “No?”

She claps her hands together once. “Then you must have turned into one at breakfast.” Will shrugs because he has no idea how else to reply. “Maybe the Doe will know.”

“The Doe?”

“Yes!” Mischa begins skipping down the train tracks. “She lives at the Station.”

“Of course she does,” Will mutters. “Is it always so hot here?”

She stops, turning around to look at him. The empty sockets of Mischa’s skull spark, little pinpoints of melted gold. Her head tilts. “Oh.”

“What?”

“You.”

Will’s hands twitch to fists, but he quickly relaxes his fingers. “What  _ about _ me?”

Mischa runs back to him and hugs his legs. “You’re you!” she tells him, bits of Will’s drape winding around her in return, as though they were friends. “At least, you’re  _ almost _ you. You’ll be you very soon, though. I wouldn’t worry.”

“I thought I was the silly one here,” and Will goes to bop her nose. His fingertip hits the inner edge of her nasal cavity, but Mischa laughs, anyway.

“The Doe will know what to do,” says Mischa, grabbing Will’s hand and tugging him along. “And there are flowers there!”

“How about a strong breeze?” Even the oddly light fabric feels stifling, like Will’s burning up inside.

“You should ask the Pythoness.”

“How many people live under this stream, anyway?” But Mischa just hums and keeps going, and Will doesn’t know what else to do but follow.   



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments so far! They're very much appreciated. <3
> 
> And now, we return to our regularly-scheduled dose of literary LSD.

Walking through this forest is much like strolling through a pop up book, Will’s decided. The trees remain silhouettes, layers upon layers of shadow puppets stretching out on either side of the riverbank. Or, rather, trackbank.

Will vaguely remembers watching a filmstrip about the logging industry back in the fifth grade. He still isn’t sure why they watched it, at all, but that’s the only sensible reason he can provide for the existence of a train track through the woods. Much of this place has managed to remind him of his youth, and he hasn’t figured out the why for that yet, either.

As for his dress--and Will is hesitant to call it a dress--following Mischa as she hums to herself, just trusting that he’s still behind her, has given him time to dissect it. The fabric runs smooth through his fingers like lotion, dissolving into smoke when hit with any kind of moisture. Will still feels hot, and his chest and neck are covered with a thin sheen of sweat. Each strand of fabric or smoke seems to have a life of it’s own, flowing around him as if Will’s jumped into a river with it on.

To be fair, Will did sort of jump into a river.

Regardless, he feels...strangely pretty.

“We’re getting close,” Mischa says, her twin bows bouncing as she turns her skull to completely face him. “We’ll have to climb out and follow the track into the trees. She hides there in the Station. In the flowers.”

“Is that the only place the flowers grow?”

Misha’s jaw drops as she laughs. “Only the ones you need, silly.”

Will sighs, and the drape sighs with him. “Which ones are those?”

A familiar voice replies, “The ones that Become you.”

He looks to his right, and now Will’s jaw drops, too. A black doe stands on the embankment, eyes and hooves made of silver. It’s the object she holds in her mouth that draws his attention most, dangling precariously from a blood-crusted ponytail.

“Hey, Will,” says Abigail’s head. Most of the flesh has rotted from the bone, and she’s missing an eye, but the rest of her face clings stubbornly onto her skull.

He swallows, and shakes, and sweats. “Hello, Abigail.” Will pauses, weighing his conversational options, and the appropriateness of asking, “How are you?”

“Kind of dead.”

Will licks his lips and lifts his eyebrows. “So you are.”

“You’re different,” says Abigail, sniffing the air. She seems to be her old self, the Abigail Will remembers from his encephalital haze. “You’ve changed.”

“Yeah. Hannibal said I wouldn’t, but we both know how that goes.”

Abigail snorts. “I don’t think he actually thought you would.” She clicks her tongue, and the Doe turns, beginning to walk off into the deceptively-depthed woods.

Mischa tugs on one of Will’s inexplicable smoke trails, and then holds up her little arms. He crouches down to lift her, and it’s like holding nothing. Will’s hands are slippery on her dress, and his fingers disturb some of the lace, and it crunches into dust as it falls up into the treetops. Secured on his hip, cradled in the gauze of his gown like a mother would wrap a child to her body, Will climbs up the bank.

The trees are no less flat now that Will’s beside them. Each time he stands next to one, it seems to vanish, too thin to be perceived. Grass springs up under his feet and between the broken, rusted rails as he steps; the blades are a dull red and feel like nothing beneath his bare soles. Will turns to look behind him once; the grass fades to white, and then to gray, and then to nothing.

“Has Hannibal changed, too?” Abigail asks from in front of the Doe.

“Do you know his true nature?”

“The Wendigo?” She hums, and it turns into a quiet little laugh. Will wonders how she is able to make any noise beyond gasping, but not enough to ask her. “How do you know?”

“You can’t live in the dark places without knowing who put you there.”

Mischa shifts in her makeshift carrier and burrows in closer to Will’s side. Her bones seep a welcome coolness into his body. “He only told me in order to save my life?”

“You mean in order to keep you in a dark place of your own?”

Will can’t decide whether he feels flattered or frightened. It’s always impossible to truly know himself in Hannibal’s absence. “Yes.”

“Probably,” says Abigail. “Hannibal tells you everything. He always has; you just weren’t very good at listening to the silences between sentences.”

“I’m still not very good at listening,” Will says. “Not great at talking, either.”

“Is that why he left?”

Will watches one of the panels of his not-a-gown phase through the black paper facsimile of a holly bush. “How did you know?” Abigail’s eye rolls out of her head, and Will’s dress picks it up and puts it back.

“The seasons changed. Have you never been out to the stream when he isn’t home?”

“No,” answers Will. Hannibal doesn’t leave often, and Will’s never needed to go out when he does. Or maybe it simply never occurred to him to do so. Will isn’t certain of that, either.

“He’s the last of them who lives here,” she explains. “The wendigo don’t pass down stories anymore or the ways to the old places. They’re either too feral or too cultured. Hannibal only stumbled upon a hallway to this place in his memory palace.”

Will nods for his own benefit. “An ancient instinct buried. Knowledge to be cultivated and taught--by an elder?”

“How should I know? Do I look like a wendigo to you?”

“How are you and Mischa here?” He shakes his head before adding, “Where even  _ is _ here?”

“The Blackwood .”

“I feel like I should’ve figured that out on my own,” Will mumbles. A fine snow begins to fall, and Mischa whimpers at his side. His hand finds it’s way to her skull instinctively, and he pets the places where her hair should fall.

“We wandered here from the palace halls,” says Abigail, “following the rails. It’s friendlier in the forest than it is in locked rooms of eternal grief.”

Will’s lungs feel numb, and his heart beat slows. “I should imagine so.” He lets his free hand drag along the shadows of growing icicles. “Was this the place he made for us?”

“On the Flipside of the stream,” Abigail confirms. “You can’t live here all the time like we do; you don’t belong among the dead, not yet.”

The trees part into a small glade full of bushes made entirely of thorns, but also the first green Will’s seen since he arrived, lush and velvety. “Lamb’s ear,” Will says as Mischa frees herself from his robe. She seems happy again; though the snow still falls in the forest, the glade remains untouched, bright and warm.

Where his bare feet touch the plush living carpet, the plants begin to bleed, and then to grow. Curious, Will crouches down, plunging both hands into the lamb’s ear; sure enough, his palms come back stained in red, and the plants rise to his waist. Around him, the drape grows luminous, and the outermost strands weave themselves into one long cape. Maybe it’s just mist condensing, the fabric turned to steam from his overheated skin.

“I’m in an acid-drenched arthouse film,” he says, staring at his hands. The smoke from around his torso licks up his arms like flames, and then his fingers are clean again. “No, it’s worse. I’m the nightmarish counterpart of a Disney princess.”

Abigail snickers as the Doe sits beside him. “If the dress fits…”

“This isn’t a dress,” says Will, scowling.

He watches the Doe carefully set Abigail’s head down into the lamb’s ear; the plants shrink and recede away from it, showing black ground beneath--not dirt, but absence. The head begins to roll itself first toward, then through the brambles until Will can no longer see it. There’s the squelch of thick mud, and then the sound of a greenstick fracture, and then all of Abigail stands up from behind the thorny brush.

“Will?” She straightens her head, and then has to pop her decaying arm back into place. “It’s kind of a dress.”

Behind him, Mischa giggles. “I always wanted to meet a fairy princess! Hannibal told me all about them.”

Will closes his eyes, resigns himself to this ridiculous torment, and sits down among the bleeding ears of silent lambs.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to "Princess Will and the Two Dead Girls"...

For a long time, the three of them simply exist in silence. Will is glad for it--all the talk of princesses left him feeling more wary than usual. Deep down, he knows they have a point, that there is a shared meaning between their characterization and what is happening between he and Hannibal. But Will doesn’t know  _ how _ he knows, only that he does.

Not for the first time, Will wishes Hannibal were here. He needs the awareness of an anchor so he can navigate freely. Now that Will considers the boat metaphor fully--and Hannibal always did seem innately fond of it--a paddle may steer the craft, but it would be meaningless without the boat itself. The oar would go nowhere with nothing for it to guide.

Will would be lost without Hannibal, yes, but Hannibal would have no purpose without Will. This epiphany feels instinctual, too, and inevitable, and incredible. It makes Will powerful, though he knew that he held a measure of power over Hannibal already.

Still, in the light of day, the activities of the night before--his submissiveness, in particular--cause an uneasiness that he has ultimately surrendered what power he held once again.

“What are you thinking about?” Abigail asks as she gazes unblinking at the sunlight filtered through the stream-sky.

“Hannibal.”

“And what else?”

Will sighs. “My place in...everything, I guess.” He looks over at Abigail; the muscles shift on her face as she smiles, bone gleaming beneath.

“That’s a lot to think about,” she says. “Wouldn’t it be easier to simply adjust and accept?”

“I think we both know exactly how good I am at that.”

Abigail pushes herself up on her elbows, and her torso separates from her waist. “Then try something new,” and Will isn’t sure how to reply. “You’re changing. When you resist, you end up hurting yourself and everyone you care about. Is what’s happening to you really so bad?”

“I don’t think I feel comfortable discussing…” He bites his lip, worries off some of the skin there, pulling on it with his teeth until it stings. “I would rather be advised by someone I don’t consider my daughter when it comes to intimate matters.”

She rolls her eyes, and they follow the curve of her cheekbone as they fall. “Sex, Will,” says Abigail as she catches her eyeballs. “You can say sex.”

“Fine. It’s weird to discuss sex with my kid.”

“Better.” Abigail rolls over, and Will closes his eyes so as to miss seeing any limbs that remain behind. “Come on. If you’re going to seek the Pythoness, you have to be ready.”

Will follows her to the thorny bushes. “What, exactly, does that entail?”

“She likes her offerings pretty.”

“Come again?”

Mischa stops spinning in the beam of sunlight to hop over and pull on his arm. “Make the flowers grow! I want to see the flowers!”

“At risk of sounding repetitive,” says Will, “come again?”

Abigail smirks. “We’re going to do your hair.”

A lifetime later--or, at least, what certainly feels like one--Will is sitting between the two girls, hands in his lap, letting himself be crowned with thorns. Blood drips into his eyes, but he doesn’t much care. He’s certainly bled worse before. Besides, the sweat is worse.

At Mischa’s insistence, he thrusts his arms into the bushes, watching as the smoke on his arms recedes in the thorns’ wake. They pierce and tear at his skin--it doesn’t really hurt, is more grounding than painful. Mischa laughs and the bones of her hands click and clack together as she claps.

White roses bloom. Will gives up on understanding what’s happening.

The corpses pick the roses, weaving into the odd crown on Will’s head. It’s easier to simply let them and not question their reasons. Abigail still hasn’t addressed the issue of offerings, but it’s easy to let that go, too. All he can think about is where Hannibal is; how empty his body is; how hot his skin is, like wildfire and fever. Will’s eyes slip close, and he feels faint; the air is too heavy to breathe.

Abigail takes his hand, and then there are feathers beneath his fingers, and then he’s sitting down on them. “I don’t trust you walking right now,” Abigail tells him. “Definitely not all the way from the Station to the Pythoness.”

But Will barely hears her--he knows the words, but they mean very little. He lets himself slowly fall forward, blinking his eyes open just enough to see that he’s lying down on the Doe. His arms come around her neck and he nuzzles into the feathers. It’s acceptably strange, comfortably familiar.

Mischa grabs onto his ankle. Abigail’s hand is pried away from Will’s elbow, and he hears it snap back into place. They all move forward together, and Will hadn’t realized how tired he was until now. He watches as blood drips down his forearm and marks the snow below as they walk back into the forest. Closing his eyes once more, Will lets himself drift.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes, they’re still walking--at least, Abigail is still walking. Mischa clings to her side, and Will wonders how bone without flesh can sniffle, but that’s hardly the strangest thing about this place. In spite of the cold, Will still feels disgustingly warm, can smell the sweat collecting on his body. The tang of iron remains, though; he must still be bleeding.

“Why am I so hot?” Will asks, mumbling.

“Because you are changing,” replies Abigail. “I mean, you’re still human, so don’t worry about that. You smell alive. It’s weird.”

“I like the way Will smells,” Mischa says quietly. “He smells like Hannibal.”

“He’s been marked.”

Will turns his head to look at Abigail. It had escaped him before, her jacket and jeans, how she died in the clothes that she wears now. “How has he marked me?”

Abigail side-eyes him. “Hannibal feeds from you, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” says Will, “but how do you know?”

“It’s not like it’s a secret. You live in the Wendigo’s world now, Will. The world knows what the Wendigo does, when he goes. You must’ve really upset Hannibal for him to have left without us.” She narrows her eyes, glares, and adds, “Again.”

“You aren’t going to forgive me, are you?” She only shrugs; Will thinks that’s probably what he deserves. “I called him ‘Alpha’. Do you know what that means?”

“Not exactly,” she admits. “The Pythoness will, though.”

But Mischa shifts around Abigail’s back to her other side and puts her cold little fingers on Will’s face. His unfathomable gown immediately wraps around her and pulls her into an embrace, swaddled beside the Doe. “It means he’s yours,” whispers Mischa. “You’ve received him.”

Abigail frowns, and her face slides down a little on her skull. “How do you know that?”

Mischa ignores her and strokes Will’s face; it’s so blessedly cool that he sighs. “You have it wrong, you know.”

“What do I have wrong, Mischa?”  _ She’s so beautiful, _ Will thinks.  _ Our daughters are so beautiful. _

“Your place,” she says. “Where you fit.”

“I don’t. Hannibal made sure of that.”

“Still lookin’ for trouble, Will Graham?”

The Doe stops. Will pushes himself up to sit, and Mischa follows, clinging to him. They’re back in the forest he remembers; the stream is in the right place once more, only the night sky above--full moon, bright stars, cloudless. The fire in the rockpit is cold, and Will wants to sit next to it forever. Next to the fire is a wrinkled old woman holding a gray cat that must be as old as she is.

She lights her cigarette off the cold heat of the fire. “I told you, boy,” says the Pythoness. “You’ve been touched. Marked.” She smiles as she brings the cigarette to her mouth. “Got the devil in you, Will Graham.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy y'all are down with Disney Princess Will Graham. <3

Will doesn’t know why the fire seems to bring his brain completely back online, but he isn’t going to ask. Abigail and Mischa hang back--Mischa’s found more flowers and is weaving them into Abigail’s hair--so Will and the Pythoness sit alone, not counting the cat.

“Gris-gris?” Will asks, gesturing at it. His gown wraps around him soothingly like a blanket.

“One of his many names,” says the Pythoness. “A trait we both share.”

“He is your...your what, your familiar?”

She tilts her head to the side, assessing him. “Of a kind, I suppose.”

“So you are a witch?” Will leans closer to the fire, trying to restrain himself from reaching out to it. Gris-gris hisses at him when his fingers reach for the flame, anyway, then slithers off the Pythoness’ lap and away into the grass, shedding fur and ears and tails like a second skin as it goes.

“No, child,” she says, and her face is kind as the wrinkles smooth. “I am _the_ witch.”

Will, very intelligently, replies, “Oh.”

The Pythoness combs her fingers through her hair. It goes from white to gray, silver to hold to red. Her lips are the same shade as her hair; her skin, now creaseless, is striated, forearms wendigo black, powdering like charcoal above her elbows. From there, her skin is old bone. The Pythoness’ face shifts from brown to black, then back to brown, then the beige of her arms. Forth and back, back and forth, fluctuating. It’s mesmerizing.

“Why did you appear to me as you did in New Orleans?” asks Will.

Her eyes flip over to red. “Old beliefs die hard in the South. Tell me you weren’t taught about the black voodoo woman--the myth of the so-called Magic Negro--when you were young,” she demands. “That is, if you can.”

He swallows hard, ashamed. “I can’t.”

“That’s alright.” The Pythoness touches his arm, rubs her thumb up and down the bone. “You know better now.”

“I try, however much that counts.”

She exhales and it’s like music. “I believe you have questions.”

Will chuckles, looking back to the fire. He goes to his knees in front of it, slipping from his seat on the exposed tree root. “There are so many to ask.”

“Which one comes first?”

“What’s happening to me? To Hannibal?”

“To be old enough to know you understand nothing.” Will doesn’t feel himself move, but he is gathered into the Pythoness’ arms. His head drops back to her shoulder: for the first time, he can see her horns, gray and curved, spiraled like a ram’s. “I envy you, Will Graham. Such a lovely age you are.” She smooths Will’s hair away from his face; he hadn’t realized how sweaty it was.

Will unconsciously nuzzles her shoulder. “But why do I feel like this?”

“There are cultures,” she begins, “where the feminine is celebrated and respected. Places where the menstrual huts are not a burden, but a birthright, where the moon-bleeders gather and are supreme, sharing the stories and the Old Ways.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“The Wendigo were one of these cultures, and this is the place where the Omegas gathered.” The Pythoness laughs, adding, “Back when there still _were_ Omegas, at least. You are, as you have always been, a rare thing. But even then, the Omegas were few in number.”

Will winces; his stomach roils; his chest tightens in self-disgust. “So I am always to be weak, then. To be subjugated. To be lesser than Hannibal.”

The Pythoness puts a finger beneath his chin, pulling his face to hers as she leans back to see him. Her eyes are silver now. “Now why would you think that, child?”

“I...when we had sex,” and Will practically spits the word out, “I could barely think. Hannibal overpowered me. It was...animalistic. I yielded to his will--submitted to it, like I always seem to do.”

“No, Will Graham. Did you not feel powerful earlier? Does Hannibal not cede to your desires now that he understands his own?”

Will blinks back tears-- _God,_ he feels so helpless. “I suppose. That’s how I felt before last night, anyway.”

“You nourish him,” she says. “He could not survive without you. The alpha is in service to _you,_ boy, not the other way around.”

“We discussed my willing enthrallment once.”

The Pythoness smiles knowingly. “Because it brings you pleasure?”

He hesitates, then says, “Yes.”

“And that is what it is, to be alphan. It is to serve at the Omega’s pleasure. Why do you think it torments him so when you send him away, when you reject him?” She regards him, seeming almost fond. “You crave his knot, to be tied.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

The Pythoness chuckles. “You will learn soon enough. Still, it is your natural instinct to bind him to you, not to debase yourself. You think omega and Alpha, but you are Omega and he alpha.”

The emphasis seems right to Will, as if audible capitalization begets profundity. Regardless, the concept remains difficult to reconcile with the context of their coupling. “Has it always been this way?”

“Yes, Will Graham. When you began to come into your own, the Wendigo knew, though Hannibal did not know. Matriarchy is an unfamiliar concept among humans, but the wendigo have always followed their Omegas. But you are both so young. Think of him as the knight to your princess, if you will.”

He scowls. “I’m not a damsel in distress.”

The Pythoness shakes her head. “Few princesses are.”

“I don’t need rescuing.”

“Few princesses do.”

Forcefully, Will says, “I’m not a girl.”

She rolls her reddening eyes; Will is grateful that they stay in her head. “No, but you _are_ traditionally feminine, because you are Omega. Your human gender remains unchanged; you are as male as you feel you are. Your human sex? I suppose you would deem that male, as well.”

“But…” He averts his eyes. It’s too hard to look at her. “I’m not Becoming a wendigo, right?”

“No,” she tells him, “only Omega. You are the last of the great queens, it would seem.”

“So, what, I’m...I don’t know, intersex? Dual gendered?”

The Pythoness shrugs. “If you wish to put it in human terms, I suppose. You are the summation of what you have been and will be.”

And Will’s mind is reeling. He’s terrified, but also strangely exhilarated. “What am I?”

“Will Graham, of course. What a strange question.” He wishes it felt as simple as she makes it sound.

“I’m still uncomfortable with ‘princess’,” says Will.

“But only princesses become queens,” the Pythoness reminds him. “You could never be a prince, Will Graham. Princes become kings, and kings are so very dull.”

Will bites his lip. “I felt very...open last night. Hannibal says I was--ugh, that I was slick. How?”

“If you’re looking for hard facts and scientific studies, you’re bound to be very disappointed. The wendigo accepted nature with far more grace than humans ever could.” She pauses, tapping her mouth with her forefinger. “I suppose there must have been a scientist among the cultured wendigo at some point, but I would hardly know where to direct you.”

“What I _meant_ was whether or not that would be the only physical change?”

She throws her head back and laughs, long and loud. “Oh, you young and worried thing. You will bear no children, as you have no womb, and the Wendigo do not reproduce.”

He’s never felt so relieved in all of his life.

“You are Omega. You are feminine, for lack of better words, but not a woman. You are whatever you choose to be, however you choose to define yourself, just as you have always been.”

“Okay,” says Will, though he’s still not convinced that it is. “So what is this that I feel right now?” he asks. “Why am I hot and…” Will pauses in realization. “It isn’t sweat running down my thighs, is it?”

“No, child,” the Pythoness confirms, “it is not.”

“I’m not interested in sex.” His words are rushed, frantic. “I like it when he touches me, when he makes me come, but I don’t--I’m not sexually attracted to him, nor he to me.”

She lays her head on top of his. “You do not know how to define yourself.” Will shakes his head and clings to her all the more. “Hannibal is likewise conflicted. Having two instincts is difficult, especially when one nature craves what the other rejects. As for what you are experiencing now…”

“Yes?”

“You are in Heat, Will Graham. Your body calls to your alpha; your blood demands sating; your mind demands proof of your dominance.”

Will’s voice trembles. “Is that why you mentioned the menstrual huts?”

“It is.”

“So this is a time of power?”

She grins widely. “Very much so.”

“Does that mean I have to have sex?” he asks. “I feel empty. I’m--Jesus, I’m craving and longing to be filled, and I hate it.”

“And you think your alpha doesn’t feel the same? His anatomy is changing, too. All he wishes is to comfort and care for you, but also to taste you, to sate you.” The Pythoness runs her hand down Will’s sternum and he moans. “You and Hannibal will find an agreeable balance. I’m certain of it.”

Will tosses his head, miserable, both from Heat and from memory. He can feel his mind slipping away from him once more, evaporating between his fingers like the fabric of the drape. “I was cruel to him this morning.”

“He will forgive you.”

“He left me,” and Will is choked on his own sobs. “He left and took the summer with him.”

She keeps stroking at his chest, then down the outside of his thigh. “And he will return and bring the spring.” The Pythoness stands up, Will still in her arms. “You are nearly beyond my power to aid your suffering. It is time for you to go back to the Flipside.”

“Abigail,” he whispers. “Mischa.”

“You will see them next month,” says the Pythoness as she wades into the stream. Around them, the water boils. “You will always seek out this place in your moontime. I will take care of them until then, as I have always done for the wendigo, as I shall always do.”

Will nods, and she bends to lay him in the water, and he begins to float upstream.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That so many of you are enjoying my reinterpretation of A/B/O dynamics is immensely satisfying. I set out to turn it on its head, and hoped it would still be fun and recognizable. I was also concerned about balancing their asexuality with the demands of alpha and omega biology. In short, thanks for your intrigue and your support! I'll be exploring both aspects in future installments. :D

Awakening on the Flipside after being in the Blackwood is excruciating. Will digs his way up and out of the fog in his brain the same way he would claw his way out of the leaves and mud had he been buried. He feels emergent, newly-birthed; maybe Will actually did push himself out of the dirt and is simply too addled to comprehend.

Regardless of his mental state, Will has resolved to conquer himself. He will not bend to the ache of his own body, to the whim of the Heat. Only when Will decides that he has mastered it will he allow the instinctual tempest to be calmed.

If this is a time of power, then powerful he shall be.

Will murmurs it like a mantra--that he is willful, that he is still himself, that he is in control. As he lays there in the dirt beside the stream, bracketed by tree roots, writhing in his misery, Will’s brain plays traitor the way it so loves to do.  _ Let him mount you like a beast, _ it tempts.  _ Let him fill you, claim you. Give into the lust for now and forgive yourself later. _

But he knows that the lust isn’t his. It belongs to the Blackwood, to the Wendigo wilds. Will may play consort--he can’t bring himself to say queen, not yet--but he is still human. His body can succumb when he lets it.

The gown is tattered like a shroud now, tangled around his arms and legs, like a once-clothed castaway washed up on shore. Will can feel the thorns still digging into his forehead and scalp. Focusing on the pain there helps distract him from the yawning emptiness inside his body. He keeps his eyes closed and concentrates on not only the pricking thorns, but also the slippery leaves pressed into his back like a second skin; the sand and grime caked between his toes and beneath his nails; the  _ plip plip plip _ of melting snow on the branches above, sprinkling onto his face as if to christen. The reprieve is temporary, at best.

Will distantly wonders where the dogs are, if they’re gone to find Hannibal, if Hannibal will find him. There’s no way he’s getting up of his own volition. The burning agony that’s settled into his bones is all-consuming. He tries to bite them back, but he can’t help the whimpers that leave his mouth, can’t stop them once they start.

Time seems to crawl by. Will’s ears fill with the rushing of his own blood and the quiet flow of the stream. The sound of his own voice feels distant and detached, moreso the longer he lies in the leaves.

Blood. Water.

Water. Blood.

Blood. Water. Barking.

Barking?

Will smells Hannibal before he sees him. He’d never put an identifiable scent to Hannibal beyond “masculine” and, more recently,  _ home. _ Perhaps having his own gender called into question has made him more open to categorizing. Hannibal smells like iron, like fire, like smoke. _. _

Opening his eyes is too difficult, but there is a cold nose pressed to each of his feet, and then Hannibal’s bare arms around him.

“I couldn’t find you,” says Hannibal. “I returned and you were gone and I couldn’t find you, Will.”

“Flipside,” Will manages to whisper. His throat is so dry; he can’t remember the last time he drank. “Saw...Pythoness.”

Hannibal shakes his head. “I feel as though I should recognize that name. I only recall seeing Mischa and Abigail, like ghosts as I slip through to the outside world.”

“Hmm,” because Will can hardly admonish him for withholding information right now.

“I should not have left. I was hurt, but I should have stayed.” He takes the rose crown from Will’s head, and Will hisses as the thorns pull out and fresh blood trickles down his face. It pools in the corners of his eyes; Hannibal bends and licks it away, follows the blood up to the source, mouths at his wounds.

Will sighs. Every place that Hannibal touches feels relieved. “‘M sorry.”

But Hannibal shushes him. “We both act to overwhelming emotion in different ways. I forgive you.”

“Home,” says Will. “Nest.”

He opens his eyes as Hannibal carries him through the forest. The Heat is tolerable in Hannibal’s presence, though still painful. Hannibal has placed the crown on his own head; Will’s blood has stained the roses red in places.

“I am reminded of the journey from Muskrat Farm,” Hannibal begins, his voice soothing. “Bearing you in my arms through the snow. Helpless. I was unable to decide whether I enjoyed it or not. All I knew was that protecting you felt better than harming you. It was…” Will watches his Adam’s apple bob, feels his chest shake against his arm. “It felt as natural as Hunting, caring for you.” He pauses, then quietly adds, “Serving you, in a way.”

Will struggles and sweats, but succeeds in raising his hand to Hannibal’s face, and Hannibal leans into his palm. “Good alpha,” and Hannibal’s muscles relax.

“I wish I possessed a greater understanding.” He holds Will more tightly to his bare skin. “My body urges me to...to mate with you,” says Hannibal. “Not as last night, when you permitted me to take. I am consumed with a need to be claimed. It disturbs me greatly.”

He’d known that Hannibal, too, was struggling with his identity--the Pythoness had said as much--but hearing it directly from him is comforting. “Another--” Will cries out as the Heat sharpens; he wonders if it’s a reaction to Hannibal’s words.

The trees move past them more quickly. Will swears he can hear hooves, but he can also hear a strange vibration, rippling through him. His body begins to go limp, and Will lets the Song lull him to unconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

When he next opens his eyes, Will is lying in their bed on several towels, stripped of the drape. The Song has brought the agony of the Heat down to a dull roar. It wraps around his muscles, and Will can’t decide whether the Song has left him immobile or if it is just another side effect from refusing to feed his Heat.

Will’s determined, though he has to clench his teeth to keep himself from groaning. He will not let this best him. His body is his own, biology be damned.

Hannibal emerges from the en suite, and Will can hear water running. “Tell me how to help you,” he says as he sits down beside him.

“A drink would be fantastic.” Will’s voice is still rough, and his tongue feels thick in his mouth, but he can at least speak through the torment. He’s experienced pain in spades; this, however,  _ this _ is torture. “I’m gonna whine for a minute.”

“And I will care for you, regardless.”

“I feel like I’m on fire,” Will tells him. “Like I’m being flayed. Fileted. I don’t know, something horrible and awful that you’ve probably done to someone. But mostly my blood is boiling, and the air in my lungs is hot, and I feel so…” He breathes in as deeply as he dares, hates himself for the tears pushing themselves out of his eyes. “Fuck, Hannibal, I’m so  _ empty. _ I keep thinking about a knot, how badly I want to take it, and I don’t even know what that  _ means.” _

Hannibal brings Will back to his arms, and moving hurts, too, because everything hurts. He cradles Will much like he did after that first Feeding some months before; Will lets his head loll back, just completely lets go and cries and cries and cries. “My Omega,” Hannibal murmurs, and it’s comforting and sweet. “Darling boy.”

Instinct is what drives Will to command, “Bathe me, alpha,” but it’s Hannibal’s sharp intake of breath that truly makes it natural. Getting to the en suite and the already-filled bathtub is more of an afterthought as Will lets himself succumb. “Promise me something,” he says, settled into the lukewarm water. “I don’t...no sex.”

The washcloth on his skin feels heavenly. Will’s vaguely aware that he’s growing wet beyond what the water touches, and it makes him squirm. He’s beginning to forget why he doesn’t want Hannibal to fuck him, but he fights his way back to conscious thought.

“You want to fight it,” Hannibal surmises. “You wish to challenge yourself.”

“Yes.”

Hannibal wrings out the washcloth in the sink, having to stretch to reach it from where he sits beside the tub. “As greatly as I desire you, I also agree that we should wait. You seem to be losing yourself quickly.”

“Heat,” explains Will. “She said I was in Heat. That my body would demand your obeisance.”

“You will eventually grow insatiable.”

“How do you know?” Will mumbles, extending his neck as Hannibal scrubs at his collarbone.

Hannibal replies, “Instinct, I suppose. My own body prepares itself, much like yours is now.”

Will cracks open an eye; Hannibal’s own are flecked with gold. “You can smell me?”

“Oh,  _ yes.” _

And he can’t help but giggle. Will may not be keen on sex, but seeing Hannibal undone is satisfying. “Tell me what that entails,” and, for good measure, he adds, “mate.” As predicted, Hannibal’s eyelids flutter closed, and he licks his lips. Will sighs and reaches for his face. “My wonderful alpha.”

“You tempt a waiting beast,” Hannibal says quietly.

“How is that any different from what I’ve always done?”

Hannibal chuckles and smiles, all pointed teeth. “Fair enough.” Taking Will’s outstretched arm, he begins to wash it, unspeakably tender. “What do you want to do about the insistence of our bodies?”

“We’ll wait it out,” says Will, “just as we agreed.”

“How, my love?” Hannibal’s voice trembles against the inside of Will’s elbow. “My mate. My Omega.”

Will sighs, still in pain, but content nonetheless. “Together.”

“As we did on the cliff?”

He smiles, slipping farther down into the water. “As we always shall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are, the end of part five. Stay tuned for more updates to the series! I have some longfic WIPs I need to work on and update, but this is hardly the end. <3

**Author's Note:**

> [[about me](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/about)] [[tumblr](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/)] [[twitter](https://twitter.com/shiphitsthefan)]
> 
> I also have a [Pinterest board](https://www.pinterest.com/shiphitsthefan/ficash-antlers/) for this series if you're interested in that sort of thing.
> 
> Kudos and comments validate my existence. <3


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